WaPo media watchdog Erik Wemple was all over NBC when their bogus Zimmerman edit was limited to the March 27 Today Show. Now that the bogus edit has been discovered at the March 22 Today Show and three times at NBC Miami, he is all over the critics calling for a more extensive investigation and is burying deep in his links their discovery of the broader mess. It looks as if Mr. Wemple was willing to follow the story until it actually led somewhere.

Follow the links for the details. I knew about the multiple instances of this same “mistake” at NBC Miami, but I didn’t realize the Today Show had made the same “mistake” the week before. If Steve Capus didn’t know that, why not? If he did know that, why is he pretending it only happened once? (Read Tom’s whole post.)

It’s a too-common sequence in the media business: A news outlet gets out in front of a big story and aggressively follows it up. Then it starts rooting for the story.

That’s the path that Newsbusters.org is now blazing vis-a-vis NBC’s mangled editing of George Zimmerman’s conversation with an emergency dispatcher. After blasting NBC for nearly two weeks on the Zimmerman audio-editing fracas, NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell has gone activist. He’s demanding a congressional investigation of the matter…

Odd: NewsBusters, which monitors the mainstream media for evidence of lefty bias, is a conservative organization. So why is it calling for an expansionist federal government to start hammering away at a First Amendment-enabled media organization?

So apparently, being a conservative means you should abide libel, and the First Amendment is a protection against the consequences of lying. Er, that is, “mangled editing.” I won’t claim to follow Mr. Wemple’s clearly superior logic.

Speaking of NBC Miami, here’s another look at one of the times they made the same deceptive edit in print:

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Baseball blog & comments on XM MLB 89 and others that "define the daily discourse" for money in order to please Bud Selig or vanity publisher bosses. I agree with Doug Pappas' statement: "Any writer meeting the Commissioner’s standards of ‘good journalism' should be fired.” I'm also a 'Saves Scholar.' Not affiliated with XM.